100 Words: In The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas

Inside the Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas I found a book.  A book with a purple cover within which was a collection of photographs for story prompts.  A scattering of joker cards, ancient ruins, a ferry headed for harbour, a strange looking forest - there were so many to see and choose from.  

And each page folded out to reveal stories created from that prompt.  Each concertina with an empty panel ready for more.

They say the book updates itself every week: a new picture, new fictions, from fictioneers, both old and new.

And the name of the book?

Friday Fictioneers.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories): 

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

My Original The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

250 Words: The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas (4)

It did not take long. Upon each flask was a small label containing a name and a date. After looking at a few I saw that they were ordered in alphabetical order of surname and before long I was picking up the flask with not just my name but that day’s date. I returned to the back counter with it.

“If that is for you then you will find inspiration within. I am certain it is from the look on your face but, if not then there will be some strange side effects I am led to believe.”

“How much is it?”

“Take it, it is yours. No charge- the books and other ventures keep us going, this is just a little project the Wizard set up to help the world along a bit.”

I thanked him, perhaps a bit too much given that I did not know if it would work at that point. It was just that I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing- the strangeness, the coincidence, the fact my name and that day’s date were on the flask that I took back to my car with me.

*

It was dark when I got home; I was scalded for being late for dinner. After I bolted it down and had a cursory chat with my wife I took the flask to my study and drained its contents.

Nothing happened at first other than feeling a little bit lightheaded. Once this faded, though, I began to write…

250 Words: The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas (3)

“On the surface, this emporium of wonders is a bookshop which, as with any other, is crammed full of the thoughts and ideas people have had, written down and subsequently been published through the ages.

“However; with the addition of magic, this bookshop has something extra- in short, this section at the back: the real Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas!” the man told me, pronouncing the shop’s name in a grand way, lifting his arms into the air as he did so.

He continued, “It is but one part of the life’s work of the Wizard, Niq, who spent many, many years creating helpful solutions to problems. Niq foresaw the needs of many future writers and created these potions to help jog out the cobwebs and help things flow once more, so to speak. You must be one or you would see a wall here covered in posters concerning books forthcoming to the marketplace.

“We’ve seen many lost souls in here over the years. Not many of the great and the good, if I’m honest, but some. A few. And now you.”

I stood, staring at him, in bewilderment, not believing a word he said- though it did seem like too much of a coincidence not to be, perhaps. “It’s true,” he said in response to my reaction, “Come back here, find your bottle and you will see.” He lifted a section of the counter and beckoned me to walk through. I did just and that and began my search…

250 Words: The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas (2)

Within the shop looked like many of the second-hand book shops I had been in over the years.  There were shelves from floor to ceiling made from a variety of woods and a mishmash of different styles, from shelves attached straight to the wall to bookcases of different sizes and shapes.

Hanging from the ceiling and stuck on the shelf edges were the titles of different sections and areas: Fiction A-Z, Philosophy, History, Science, Religion and Theory were some I remember seeing in there that day.

Inside the front bay windows was a large, unattended desk piled high with books still to be sorted, a hefty tome for recording sales and the locked cash box that served as the cash register.

I was starting to think that this maybe wasn’t the place for me necessarily when I noticed that, at the back of the shop, there was another counter running across the width of the shop separating it from the area behind. An area full of further shelving, containing glass flasks filled with an assortment of coloured liquids.

My curiosity led me onwards and I was quickly standing at the counter staring beyond to this curious section at the back of the bookshop. I wondered, quite possibly out loud, what it was all about and, as if in response to my thoughts, an old man appeared before me and asked if I required help. When I replied in the affirmative he said, “Well, then I shall explain it to you…”

250 Words: The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas (1)

I was lost for words. My brain wasn’t coming up with any thoughts that I could translate onto paper with pencil. I’d even turned to the dictionary, a whole book of words- randomly flicking its pages and staring at entries but found nothing that could kick-start my creativity.

Films and books hadn’t helped either, they only served to be make me feel small, inadequate and unable to better what had gone before; nor creative exercises I found on the internet.

In the end I took to driving for hours, hoping I might see something in the city, town or country that could become the basis for a story. Each day I would rise, get ready, then see where the road took me. Then, when I started to get too tired or too far from home, I would switch on the satnav and let it guide me back. Slowly I was covering the whole of the manageable radius.

It was on a Tuesday afternoon I found it, not long before home time, in fact, on a narrow street in a part of the city that had once seen prosperity but was now slowly decaying. The shop itself looked well over a hundred years old, maybe two hundred. Its front featured a bay window jutting into the street. Each of its three panes were made of a grid of small windows containing ribbed circles like bottle bottoms. Given its name I walked straight in. This might just be what I was after…